Amazon Opens Door to Shop Through Twitter

Amazon announced a new service today called #AmazonCart. The service will allow Amazon customers to directly add products to their shopping carts straight from their Twitter feed.

Once customers link up their Twitter account to Amazon, they will be able to reply to any tweet that contains an Amazon link with the hashtag #AmazonCart and the items will be added to their carts.

Customers can’t buy products directly through the hashtag, rather the products will remain in their carts until they decide to purchase them. This means your Twitter feed can become your real-time wish list without you ever having to switch apps.

The move by Amazon is interesting considering Twitter is rumored to be building its own commerce experience. However, sources say that Twitter will most likely take a cut of the sales in order to open up a new revenue stream and reassure shaky investors.

Amazon already has implemented revenue-sharing programs for websites in the past, such as with Adam Carolla. They could pursue a similar deal with Twitter with a portion of the revenue also filtering down to the brand manufacturer. This could also open up even more possibilities via Twitter and Amazon with cause marketing campaigns such as Product (Red).

It also signals a shift in Twitter from being simply a social media platform to more of multi-revenue stream service provider.

Brands stand to gain a lot from the integration. While consumers would still have to go through Amazon’s service, the potential exposure on Twitter could be huge.

For example, say you are a small handbag manufacturer and you post a link to buy your product on Amazon via Twitter. An influential fashion blogger sees the deal and replies to your tweet while also re-tweeting it to his or her followers. Soon, you could have hundreds of people adding and buying your product. Not to mention that the hashtag #AmazonCart could easily become a trending topic also driving traffic and exposure.

On the other hand brands could develop their own Twitter integration without Amazon, instead pushing their native sites with their own shops and deals.

Regardless, one-stop shopping and browsing on the Internet has become just a little easier.

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